Traditional data centers are designed with computing frameworks that provide a distinct separation between application servers, network nodes, and storage nodes. For example, front end application servers of a data center typically have at least two adapters, including, for example, an Ethernet NIC (Network Interface Card) to connect to a computer network (e.g., Ethernet-based Local Area Network), as well as an FC HBA (Fiber Channel Host Bus Adapter) card to connect to a storage network, such as a SAN (storage area network). Moreover, storage nodes of the data center typically implement HBA cards, wherein the application servers and storage nodes utilize the HBA cards to communicate over a storage communications network implemented using Fiber Channel-based network switches. Moreover, in conventional data center designs, the storage nodes implement fabric cards that are configured to enable communication between the storage nodes using an internal fabric backplane having fabric switches, which is separate from the network switches of the storage area network.
While CI (Converged Infrastructure) and other unified computing frameworks have been developed to group multiple IT (Information Technology) components into a single, optimized package, the primary purpose of such conventional computing frameworks is to consolidate systems, centralize IT management, and reduce TCO (total cost of ownership). However, these conventional designs are not flexible with regard to scale-out of storage nodes or application servers. For example, the addition of new application servers into the computing system can result in an increased processing load on the back end storage nodes, requiring the addition of a new storage node. Such scaling results in “coarse-grained” scaling of the storage nodes and places limits on scaling flexibility.